lots of people look for native chefs as well as native clientele and quite unabashedly. is it racist? depends on your personal definition of racist. if it’s racist to harbor any sort of preconceived notion based on ethnicity - sure. is it an active and unrelenting hatred of someone solely based on their ethnicity? hardly.
This is getting off-track. The main topic here is food, not race.
Adding to the comments about rice - having a roll drop a fair amount of rice or even start unrolling is a sign that the rice isn’t right and the chef may be unskilled. Trying to pop the roll into your mouth and it’s awkward because it’s coming apart is not a pleasant dining experience.
A somewhat related question: I’ve seen some rolls made so that a portion of the filling sticks way out of one end, and this roll piece is often turned upright so that it is prominently displayed on the plate. However, these are very awkward to eat, since the contents make the piece twice as big or even larger than a regular piece. Is it polite to lift the piece and simply bite off the bits that are sticking out, chew, then follow with the rest of the piece? Or must one cram the whole thing into your mouth at once?
That’s interesting because I just came back from Sushi Yasuda, which is among the best sushi spots in NYC. They claim that it’s “preferable” to eat it with your hands. They give you a small wet napkin in a dish that is supposed to be used for wiping your hand after every eating piece of sushi. I’m not sure if this was only for the omakase or “tasting menu”.
Prior to today, I had only ever eaten sushi with chopsticks.
Ok, the deal is, that every sushi chef is really just a glorified fishmonger, even Jiro, and this is why I feel the true spirit of rice and fish, in its true and humble, food of the poor masses origin will never be expressed through Jiro or any other sushi chef’s art as it is known today.Quite the opposite, it’s quite obvious that these are refined and courtly (Edo style) serving styles that really depend on an abundant retail of past due fish, historically. The only true practitioner’s of the art of sushi were the fisherman of old who caught these fish and ate them, on the cold seas, the absolutely most fresh and deftly butchered in the hunt, perhaps served with some cold vinegared or fermented rice and the simplest condiments. That’s what would make the best sushi chef to me, a poor and humble fisherman on the open seas, fileting his best catch for his dinner, and eating them with riceballs his wife had sent with him… the ocean spray, the only seasoning… warm and moving fish. A sushi cruise and fishing trip is the only way you will taste the essence of sushi.
You have absolutely no idea of what you are talking about. Raw fish, by itself, is sashimi. Rice balls are not the same as sushi. Rice balls are not seasoned with rice vinegar, they are just cooked rice that has been smushed together into a ball and served cold. Rice balls may be wrapped in nori (seaweed) but that does not make it sushi.
The word “sushi” refers to rice prepared with sweetened vinegar. There does not need to be any fish, raw or otherwise, in sushi. It has nothing to do with fisherman eating their fresh catch. Pretty much the opposite, it probably came about from using fermented rice to **preserve **fish.
I know that raw fish by itself is called sashimi, that’s why I said that the true origins of the art of sushi are humble and lie in the simple components of rice and fish and with fisherman not resteraunteurs.. Every modern Japanese aesthetic in the art is a “raised and courtly” style to hide rotting fish with sour rice., in traditional and arcane terms. If you fish, I imagine, one would be a better sushi chef.
I know riceballs are plain, that’s my point. You honestly can’t see the simple quelle of sushi as a fisherman at sea or on land eating his plain rice lunch with a raw, fresh, fish?
I’ve never seen an Eskimo sushi chef… but I bet they would be good at it. The life-long knife skills and experience with fish. They don’t necessarily have a lot of rice experience. Some people think that the native tribes of Japan and that tribal ethnicity or heritage might be the progenitors of the Eskimos.
An Eskimo sushi chef in Japan?.. that’s like being Corky and the Juice Pig’s only gay eskimo.
If he did, it would be called sashimi. Rice is a staple in Japan, and it is prepared in a variety of ways; plain boiled rice is not sushi. The fact that a fisherman eats rice with his lunch is about as remarkable as a French person eating bread with his.
It’s laughable… and adding vinegar to the rice somehow makes it remarkable? That’s about as remarkable… but not quite, as a French person putting butter on their bread.
In my opinion as a native Japanese, that’s not what sushi is about. Sushi is all about the skills for preparation, especially the skills in preparing the rice, making a ball in just the right consistency and putting it together with the other ingredients. Good fresh ingredients are certainly important, but fresh fish is not what defines a good sushi.
Also, some types of fish aren’t at their best when fresh; they’re better after they’re aged for a day or so.
It’s not just vinegar. And rice is a very delicate thing. It’s not easy to cook it perfectly, and put together a nigiri that isn’t squashed, but still holds together well.
I’m pretty sure that if I went to a sushi place here in the U.S. or Japan, that “sushi” would be an umbrella term covering both. Even at a traditional sushi joint in Japan, I could probably order sushi minus the rice, or let it be known through quite some forewarning and very formal negotiations and etiquette that I wouldhumbly request some sashimi.
In Japan, absolutely not. In the US, maybe, but I haven’t seen it myself.
Well yes, most sushi restaurants also serve sashimi. But there’s no overlap between the two words.
I saw Jiro serve plain Tiger Shrimp Sashimi in the very linked video to this thread. He seperated a Large Tiger Shrimp from its shell, cut it in half, and put it on a plate. Is that sashimi or not?
You may be sure, but you are wrong.
It’s like going to an Italian restaurant and ordering a plate of spaghetti without the pasta. They might bring you a bowl of sauce, but it’s not pasta. “Sushi” refers to the vinegared rice. Not all sushi has fish, everything with raw fish is not sushi, but all sushi is made from vinegared rice.
Many restaurants serve both sashimi and sushi, but they are not the same thing.
Er… what?
Seriously, devilsknew, I agree you’re not as informed as you think you are. I’ve never been to a US sushi place where there was no distinction between “sushi” and “sashimi”.
Even the freakin’ grocery store near me that sells take-out sushi knows the difference.
I know they are not the same thing, and that is why I quite specifically made reference to the humble art of rice and fish. And even you cannot deny the rice cannot be seperated from the fish in the art of sushi… I mean, what would they serve? Rice and Rice on Rice, with seaweed?
You know, that’s quite ignorant and trollish. You know exactly what I mean. When was the last time you went to the local “sashimi bar”, Japanese and Americans? I’'ll tell you when… never. But you damn well had sashimi at your local sushi bar.
Sure it can, there is lots of sushi that does not have fish. Cucumber rolls, daikon pickle rolls, and tamago (omelet) off the top of my head.